Undergraduate Admissions: Student input from start to finish

With Dean of Academic Services and Student Affairs Kristine Dillon gone and announcements this semester by Dean of Engineering Ionnis Miaoulis, Dean of Admissions David Cuttino, and Friedman Nutrition School Dean Irwin Rosenberg that they will leave Tufts at the end of the semester, Tufts' Human Resources Department must be quite busy. As the administration crafts search committees to find replacements for these and several other openings, it should keep in mind ways to include student input at all points in the process.

Right now, students are often asked to participate in interviews with prospective candidates. But this limits their opportunity to have an impact on the process, as they usually do not play a role in who Tufts chooses as finalists. Additionally, participation in search committees is rarely publicized. Students are usually selected based on their associations with other campus groups, often the Tufts Community Union Senate. This creates a time strain on senators, who serve on many student-faculty and student committees, and prevents students who don't want to lobby for soap and paper towels from being involved in the process.

If the Tufts really is taking student input seriously, as it should, then all students who are truly interested in helping to be part of the process should be given an equal opportunity to do so. Although confidentiality and the necessity of final decisions to be made behind closed doors are understandable, students could be asked to sign a statement agreeing to these principles before signing on to a committee.

Student input on evaluating potential administrators, faculty, and staff is crucial, as they bring a perspective and a set of concerns to the table that administrators often do not realize. The quality of their experience at Tufts is often determined by administrators or by a particular faculty member or center director with whom they interact. Therefore, it makes sense to give them a voice in the hiring process.

An example of a way that student opinion can be incorporated into the process is seen in the Political Science Department, which invites all students in its honor society to be a part of interviews. To get into the society, students must prove themselves to be responsible and hard-working _ characteristics that would ensure that they take the process seriously.

Administrators would be wise to follow a similar strategy, or perhaps to survey students about qualities that they look for in administrators. Not only would this increase the quality of the search, it would make students more accepting of the selected candidate. To have current students be a part of making the decision of who they think could best benefit the school and enrich the Tufts community is not only beneficial _ it is indeed necessary.